When the last day came, I was sweating bullets.
I was standing in front of the ancient mirror in my personal room while chanting to myself, "You'll do fine, you can do it! Just be in two places at once, two at once! Ah, what am I kidding?! I can't be in two places at once!"
The maids simply passed by, chattering behind their hands as I fisted and un-fisted the dress I was wearing in my hands.
Okay, so Mother wanted me in her sight during the full party, which was four hours. If I just sat a doll down at a table with food in front of it, commanding it to eat every once in a while, then no one would suspect a thing.
No, that wouldn't work! Chord, Adri, and Hera are likely to come and try to drag me away!
So I can't do that...is I really best after all to just do it as myself?
Stay by the king as Knight, then pop up as myself in the crowd every once in a while. I think it would work if Mother didn't particularly mind that I wasn't constantly by her side.
"Knight," the vice captain of the king's squadron contacted me. "Get over here."
"What's the magic word~?" I said back in Knight's voice, not taking a command from anyone. The maids did a double-take, looking back at me. I just continued flustering over my dress, being the cute child I was, and they continued onwards out of the room.
Sorry, please don't doubt your sanity.
"Ugh...please."
"Thank you very much, my dear vice captain~☆. I'll be over there in a minute," I chirped while running out the door.
I could tell he was shivering on the other end of the line.
I cut the connection and sighed by myself. This time, I was in front of Mother's door, where I could already hear Magaris was struggling to get Mother into a dress and teach her the things she hadn't bothered to learn before.
"Now, when you are before the king, you curtsy like this."
"This?"
"No, you're too forward. Lean back a little but keep your head down."
"Hello," I pushed the door open. "Mother, I'm going ahead. Have fun~!"
And with that, I dashed away while firmly losing the door. Didn't want anyone to see that weird scene, they might get the wrong idea.
Like me.
I turned down a hallway, heart thundering in my ears, as for some reason it only hit me just now I would be appearing in front of a crowd. What should I wear? My regular clothes, of course. But wait, he said not to wear black! Ah, who cares what the king said? But then again, it would probably be a bad idea because I could be mistaken as a Demon even though my name is well-known.
So, I had the same style as my regular outfit, but just changed the colors. It became a gray, instead of black or white. That way I could blend in to the background while not looking like a Demon. Or a Church member, because they always wear white.
That's actually too bad. If not for my persona and the Church claiming that color, I think I might've worn it. Would've looked really cool, too...
Well, don't want to wear that because it would imply I had an affiliation with the Church. Then they might take credit for all I've done, and that would not make me a happy camper.
After that, I teleported to the king's office.
"Finally here?" he said to the air, lifting his face from the papers.
"A lady rushes for no one," I replied as I walked forward and sat on the edge of the desk. "She also waits for no one. What are you doing? We must go now, is that not correct?"
"I just have a few more documents to read and sign, then we'll be out-"
"Nope," I used wind magic and picked him out from behind the desk, lifting him over to stand in front of me. By a "few," he was talking about at least thirty more papers. The pile that was already done was split into five stacks of at least fifty, making me wonder how he spent his days.
While he was in surprise that someone actually used magic on him, I exclaimed, "Are your maids faulty? You aren't even dressed!"
"I dress myself since a maid tried to assassinate me a few years ago," he explained defensively, tugging on his plain lapels.
"Then your second wife or someone should take the reign," I rolled my nonexistent eyes. "That ought to do a lot of good."
"I don't have a second wife," his eyes turned cold as he looked at the floor.
"Look, I don't care if you want to have attitude or anything, but while you are at this party you have to behave like a king, and more importantly at least dress like one."
"I prefer humility, thank you very much."
"So now what, you are the black sheep of the royal family? Please, I know what humble is. No royal is humble," I shook my head.
"Could've fooled me..."
"Is a certain young king talking back to me? Hm? I thought not. Now, to fix this absolute mess you've created..." I looked at the colors of his attire, which was the same as the national colors of green and silver. However, it looked like it was at least ten years old, it was so outdated.
"It is not a mess, it's my-"
"Rags, yes. I guess I'll have to play mother for today, too," I sighed while drawing on some mana from the air. "Maid, guard, wife, sister, daughter, why do I have so many roles to play?!" I grumbled under my breath.
Before he could object, I manipulated the style of his clothes to match something I'd seen in Father's closet. Then, I added in some details of my own that I thought might fit.
I'd seen pictures of past monarchs and how they dressed, seen dukes and marquis walking around in their weird attire. Out of all those, I just threw something together.
The product was way better than before, at least to me.
A forest green button down shirt with a silver vest on top, a same color scheme for the cape I put on him that had silver outlines. The pants were green as well, the cuffs silver. Of course, there had to be a tie of some sort to keep the cape on, or should I call it a long coat? The tie was made of small silver chains, three of them stretching across his chest. On his hand I just put one silver ring, the insignia of the royal family upon it. With a tiny bit of wind magic, I combed his dark blue hair back and made it so the whites of his eyes weren't so red from just office work all the time.
Of course, my imagination had been working for some time before I enacted it, so everything was perfect. The whole magic only took about three seconds to appear.
For the sake of courtesy, I put a full length mirror from my storage in front of him.
"You see how it is now? Do not change any of it. If you do...I will know."
He was staring wide eyed at me as I folded my arms and listened to the party far away from here. Now that I thought about it, we'd be quite late for the party if we just leisurely walked over there now.
"Agh, we'll be late. Even if a lady is never late, a king can be. Come on, I'll take us there." I walked up to him and looped my arm in his while he was still standing there, as if he were to escort me. "Hm, where is the ball room again?"
Without thinking too much about it, I teleported towards the noisiest place while making us invisible at the same time. I was too busy, and it felt like I was rushing, but it really felt like I had no time to stop and smell the roses.
We appeared above the people, standing in the air. The king panicked and I had to hold on to him tighter, even though I knew he wouldn't fall down.
Taking him over to the throne designated to him for the night, on a balcony above the crowd, I let him go.
He dropped just below the guardrail, becoming instantly visible to anyone watching. Of course, since there were curtains behind the throne that were pinned to the frame at the bottom, I went behind those and let myself become visible. Unless you noticed my shock of white hair, you couldn't see me unless you knew I was there. Behind the curtains was just a really dimly lit hallway, where I stood.
"Wow, it's the king!"
"He actually showed up!"
"His Majesty!"
"How handsome..." Most of the unmarried noble ladies swooned when he turned around and showed his full profile.
You couldn't tell from far away, but he was blanching right now. I guess using too much impossible magic in under a minute was a little much for him.
"Hey, my king!" I whisper shouted at him. "Snap out of it and act natural!"
He slightly jolted, trying to ease into the roll of a ruler. I wasn't interested and looked everywhere else, searching for any danger or anyone I wanted to avoid while I was Firea.
Hm? There's that boy again, the blue haired one from the twin's tea party. Ah...he looks just like the king...and so does that older boy behind him, while the girl has similar features too...
They are his children.
Of ages seven, nine, and twelve, the children of the king came up the stairs to greet their father. The oldest, which was the boy Andrew, had a stunning resemblance to his parents. I'd seen paintings of all of them together as I walked through the halls, and you could tell that the boy was an exact replica, half and half of each of them, with just one look. Although obviously the king's genes were more prominent, what with the color scheme, after all.
The second child, the girl, was more like the mother. Her hair was cut to the shoulders, eyes glowing as she looked over the ball and room while marching up the stairs. She was the perfect appearance of a little lady, with the name of Välene.
The last child, Lars. The one I finally recognized, upon seeing his calm demeanor and the chandelier's light hitting his eyes.
I met him at the twin's third birthday party, he was the one that led me to the garden! So that's where he was from!
Ah, I sighed weakly in my mind. He's also the last capture target...
Great.
"Master, isn't that...?" I picked up a voice a bit off to my right.
"Yes, it is," Father replied to Thérèse. "The colors are a bit different, but I'd recognize that lady anywhere."
No, you wouldn't. I meet you every day, and you don't recognize me.
I'm going to make fun of you for this later, mark my words...should you ever find out that I'm Knight.
Haha, no.
"What? Where? Who are we looking at?" Mother questioned while putting an empty glass on a passing waiter's tray.
"Firea's 'friend,' Knight. Up on the balcony, behind the throne. When Fir said it, I believed it, but seeing it in person...it was true, what she said about a contract. How ever does she get wrapped up in all this? She's front and center to all information, constantly. Honestly, it's amazing how lucky she is," Father shook his head.
"That's not luck, Master. It's fate," Thérèse countered with her eyes on me.
"That's Knight?" Chord was staring at me as well, furrowed eyebrows raising slightly in appraisal. Honestly, you could tell everything she was thinking by the movement of her eyebrows, they do not lie. "She's certainly more...unusual than I thought she would be."
"Come on, Chord. This is a friend of Firea's we're talking about. Of course she'd be weird," Mother sighed. "Don't let her hear you, though. She is the one who saved you and your brother after all."
"Really?!" Chord turned to Mother with blatant surprise.
"You didn't know?" Magaris answered.
"No..." She started looking at me with new eyes.
"Oh, that's right," Hera commented. She turned to Chord with nonchalance and innocence, as if only seeming to see her for the first time. "Where did you come from again?"
You only think to ask this how many years later?
"I don't really know..." Chord was perplexed. "Mom, where did I come from?"
Mother blanched while Father looked like he suddenly didn't want to be here. "Um, that's a story for when you are older..."
"I'm almost ten years old. How much older do I have to be?"
"Three years are missing from that, so you are seven right now. We'll tell you in ten or so years, when you are old enough," Mother fired back with a warning stare.
"Oh, fine," she accepted wth a pout. "But could you at least tell me how well that Knight lady knows me?"
"I don't know much? Except for the fact that she plucked you from a place you shouldn't be, gave you and your brother a new home with us."
"That sounds like a lot. Weren't we in Zueltina? How did we get here?"
"Teleportation, just like Fir does," Adri answered.
"So she's really powerful?"
"Fir says Knight is more powerful than her by far," Hera nodded. "And Sissy is already pretty amazing, so I wonder how strong that lady is?"
"Don't tell me you want to know because you want to have a match," Thérèse had a trying face like she wanted to reprimand her, but held back because she knew it would have no meaning. "If so, you are just like Madame. And me, since I already thought to ask for one too."
"That's not a bad thing," Magaris said without thinking. The rest of the group turned to her. "Is it?"
"It i-"
"Don't you dare say it," Mother intervened with her chin in the air. "Or I'll show you what it really is."
While the comedy panel over there was really getting into it, the other nobles were staring because it was odd for servants to be conversing so casually with nobility.
I ignored them after watching for a while, noticing that there were another four pairs of eyes on me off to the right. When I turned my head that way, Andrew and Välene pulled back. Lars was the only one unperturbed, looking like he was a chill little guy over there. In this form, I towered over many people, so I must be extremely scary to a small seven year old. It made sense that Andrew and his sister had a bit of fear in their eyes, while the king was used to having someone look him in the eye.
"What do you want?" Andrew glared at me. Twelve year olds, always rebellious.
"Andrew, do not speak to her that way," their father warned. "She is not someone you wish to anger."
And you better not defend that boy when he screws up with me.
"But she's so..."
Välene reached up and slapped a hand over her older brother's mouth, staring at me with unease at the same time.
Good girl, I smiled slightly. She seemed to shiver when she noticed that.
"Hello," I noticed Lars was in front of me a long time ago, but had been waiting for him to speak up. "It's nice to meet you. My name is Lars, what's yours?" He held out his tiny hand for me to shake.
After staring at him for three seconds, likely making him more scared of me by the second as he couldn't actually see my eyes, I decided to oblige his whims. His father was watching worriedly, likely thinking I would do something weird since I was never normal any time we met.
Just to throw his worry back in his face, I knelt down in front of the boy on one knee and held out my own hand.
I grasped it and shook it firmly, saying, "I am called Knight. How are you this fine evening, Lars?"
He smiled like a delighted, pleasant child. "I'm good, thank you very much. How are you?"
"Not too good, I have to go. Someone not very intelligent decided to summon a Demon on this night, so I have to go subdue it," I stood up and released his hand, sighing. My alarm clock was going off like crazy in my head, becoming louder and louder with each passing second. Wow, that's a really dangerous Demon. Better go now. "It was nice meeting you. Since this conveniently seems like a ploy to get me away from here, I'll leave you guys a little present."
I raised my hand and swiped it to the side, casting magic on all of them at once. The spells I deployed were [Skin-Tight Barrier], [Emergency Teleport], [Telepathy], [No Presence], and [Boost]. All of them are pretty much self-explanatory. Just for the sake of it, I cast [Emergency Lockdown] and my trial spell while using a phrase, [Keep Out Impure] on the ballroom. The rest of the people outside of it could fend for themselves.
To me, all that registered was my mana total going down by a few points. To them, it looked like a wave of black mana as thin as a blade of wind. Their bodies glowed for one second, and the spell set in. After that, they were just blinking while trying to find anything different with their bodies.
"Well, time to go," I turned away and went through a portal that I made. Usually these days I just disappeared, but I was starting to get back into the habit of making a sort of doorway of magic that looked like a black hole. It made my character seem mysterious, I guess, and left a better impression on those who saw. "See you later."
I disappeared into the portal, which closed behind me as I appeared on the other side.
What greeted me was a type of lower Demon, which was usually called a monster. That doesn't mean Demons and monsters are completely different when you say they are lower, because depending on the type they can be as powerful as a middle rank Demon. The only thing that set them apart was the intelligence.
This thing was extremely low in power, I could tell while peeking at its Status, and very dumb. It was the type that was usually controlled by the summoner, who was somewhere around here.
How did this summoning take place without me noticing? Why didn't my alarm go off earlier? How many people were sacrificed this time? What fool decided to summon a Demon while I was so close by?
Literally, the castle was within walking distance from here. I could even make out individual windows, whereas there were so many of them they usually looked like one whole one.
So how?
I wasn't going to bother asking at he was doing here, seeing as its intelligence total was 10.
Wait, that's probably an insult...since the average intelligence was ten for people.
Anyway...
Also, it wouldn't move unless its summoner commanded it. So truly, there was nothing to do.
Instead, I just waited. It was standing on a roof while facing forward, its back to me. It didn't make a sound, wasn't breathing, and just stood there, watching.
Waiting.
I didn't attack, since there seemed to be something off about it. I only surveyed its Status, taking in the drastic numbers.
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Name: (None) Age: (unknown) Race: Demon (Sub: Shapeshifter)
Partner(s): Akia Lophro
Akia Lophro Sub-Association: (None's) master
Title: (None)
Lvl: 305 (categorized unknown)
HP: 10 MP: 10 STR: 10 VIT: 10 DEX: 10 INT: 10 LUC: 10
Attribute: None
Skill: Shapeshift, Impersonation, Perfect Imitation, Resemble, Absorb, Memorize
Condition: Under mind control. To cure: death or dispel mind control.
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Uhhhhh what?
Will this even be a fight?
No, Knight! Don't fall for the ploy! They always trick you this way, just like that meat that looked like a vegetable a few days ago!
Besides, it's a shapeshifter! Those things are devious if their power is used incorrectly, and you can't find them if they disappear without a trace, ever again.
Instantly, I put a marker on it. The [Radar] signified that it was right in front of me, which I was thankful for since it showed it worked.
I mean, I had no idea if this marker would still appear on the map if it used its Skills, but it was worth a shot.
For some reason I found that the summoner, when I tried searching for it, was dead. I blinked at my own stupidity for not searching for that in the first place, then realized the Demon was not moving because it was still under mind control. Even though the master was not there, the spell itself was cast and not dispersed. With the summoner dead, the spell should've dispersed.
Unless the summoner did not keep the spell to himself, but instead used a medium between it and the monster to host the spell so his MP wouldn't drain away.
Ohhh, smart.
But this means that now I had a summoned Demon here, no master to defeat, a medium to find, the place of summoning has to be located, the sacrifices to be taken care of, and a whole lot more.
"Fir, where are you? I haven't seen you for thirty minutes! You promised me you would attend!" Mother called over telepathy.
I slapped my face to remind myself I wasn't dreaming, this was the sad and cruel version of reality I had to deal with.
Agh...!
Dear Stars, can't a girl catch a break around here?!
What am I going to do with this Shapeshi-oh...
O-ho...well Merry Christmas to me, yeah?
"Hey Mother," I called back over the line, while biting my lip and cupping my chin, a smile gracing my face in the moonlight. "How do you contract a familiar?"